Trump Just Got The 'Corporate Death Penalty' In New York, And It Is HI-LARIOUS.
If they can do it to him, they can do it to you!
The thing to understand about the partial summary judgment against Donald Trump, his two grown idiot boys and his companies that just came out of New York state is that they’re all absolutely fucked. And though there will still be a trial, a lot of the important part is pretty much over.
Both sides had asked for summary judgments from the judge — for findings of fraud, or for the judge to say this is a WITCH HUNT!!!1!!!, respectively. Clearly Judge Arthur Engoron did not find WITCH HUNT!!!!!11!
He did find some fraud.
He also sanctioned Trump’s lawyers for their trifling-ass bullshit so-called legal arguments, which as he explains have been rejected again and again and again, so please stop wasting his time.
The top lines here: did Trump inflate his net worth when it was convenient, to get better interest rates and loan terms, and so forth? He sure damn did. Did he do this by inflating the value of real estate holdings? Yes, Eric Trump, he sure damn did, by up to $2.2 billion, no matter what your real estate porning Zillow comps for similar South Florida trash palaces say.
What happened here is known colloquially as the “corporate death penalty” — the judge ordered the cancellation of Trump’s New York business certificates, the dissolution of all the LLCs, and so forth. How that plays out is unclear (hit that link for some analysis from experts), but the overall gist is GOODBYE, TRUMP ORGANIZATION IN NEW YORK!
Of course, Trump’s trifling-ass lawyers will appeal and drag this shit out until Kingdom Come, but whatever. The arc of justice bends toward burying Donald Trump underneath every prison in the country and dissolving every shred of evidence that his business entities ever existed.
At trial, Attorney General James will now merely have to prove that specific criminal acts have happened, now that the judge has agreed that broadly there was a whole lotta frauding going on. The trial is supposed to be starting Monday. As the Daily Beast puts it, it “will mostly focus on damages that could pulverize whatever is left of Trump’s many business entities and bank accounts.”
So that’s fun.
This Ruling Is Fun To Read!
Engoron’s disdain and contempt drips through every page. It’s fuckin’ gorgeous.
In our morning post on Eric Trump insisting that his daddy’s trash palace is worth a billion dollars — overvaluing the property, which is incidentally what this case is about, DUMBASS ERIC — we laughed as Engoron ripped to shreds Trump’s expert whose valuation of Mar-a-Lago appeared to be based on “unexplained and unsubstantiated ‘dreams.’”
On page three Engoron handles Trump’s arguments that the attorney general didn’t have standing to sue, saying Trump’s legal arguments “invoke the time-loop in the film ‘Groundhog Day, ’” and explaining that they have been rejected repeatedly. There’s a lot of “yet again” and “erroneously claim” and “incorrectly rely on” and “glaringly misrepresent,” as Engoron disposes with each and every Trump argument.
“Fatally flawed.”
“In flagrant disregard of prior orders of this Court.”
Even if you don’t know the details, you can just read it for tone.
How much disdain does this judge have for the bullshit Trump’s lawyers have put him through? Get a load of this passage:
In response to both OAG’s request for a preliminary injunction and to defendants’ motions to dismiss, this Court rejected every one of the aforementioned arguments. In rejecting such arguments for the second time, this Court cautioned that “sophisticated counsel should have known better.” However, the Court declined to impose sanctions, believing it had “made its point.”
Apparently, the point was not received. […]
Defendants’ conduct in reiterating these frivolous arguments is egregious. We are way beyond the point of “sophisticated counsel should have known better”; we are at the point of intentional and blatant disregard of controlling authority and the law of the case. This Court emphatically rejected these arguments, as did the First Department. Defendants’ repetition of them here is indefensible.
Or this passage, which is even meaner:
Capacity and standing are not esoteric concepts. Infants, legally declared incompetents, and persons under certain legal disabilities are not allowed to sue. The New York Attorney General is none of the above. […]
Exacerbating defendants’ obstreperous conduct is their continued reliance on bogus arguments, in papers and oral argument. In defendants’ world: rent regulated apartments are worth the same as unregulated apartments; restricted land is worth the same as unrestricted land; restrictions can evaporate into thin air; a disclaimer by one party casting responsbility on another party exonerates the other party’s lies; the Attorney General of the State of New York does not have capacity to sue or standing to sue (never mind all those cases where the Attorney General has sued successfully) under a statute expressly designed to provide that right; all illegal acts are untimely if they stem from one untimely act; and square footage subjective.
That is a fantasy world, not the real world.
Breathtaking.
And it’s only after all that — those are still the arguments for why the damn lawyers should be sanctioned! — that Engoron gets into the meat of the various frauds themselves, dispensing with defendants’ arguments that “the documents [herein] do not say what they say; that there is no such thing as ‘objective’ value; and that, essentially, the Court should not believe its own eyes.”
He goes through Trump’s claims that he can’t possibly overstate value, because so much of the value is in the BRAAAAAND, which his him (LOL), and because he could get a “buyer from Saudi Arabia” to give him any amount of riyals he wanted for his properties.
And Trump’s claims that his 10,996 square-foot Trump Tower apartment can be rounded up to 30,000, because “the calculation of square footage is a subjective process.” Practitioners of the dark arts of math must use all kinds of weird sorcery to arrive at their numbers! (In a footnote, Engoron notes that during oral arguments, Trump lawyer Christopher Kise admitted that square footage is an objective number, not just a general vibe.)
And Trump’s wild over-valuation of his Seven Springs compound, which Wonkette has explained in detail a number of times before.
And Mar-a-Lago.
And all the others. So many others. Fraud fraud fraud fraud fraud. “Persistent and repeated fraud.” Open and shut, chapter and verse, fuck around and find out.
Donald Trump likes to bitch and bellyache about how everything is ELECTION INTERFERENCE! and people are only going after him because he is such a brilliant and beloved man of the people trying to make America Great Again. It’s bullshit, but contained therein is a nugget of truth, namely that all this obvious in-your-face fraud might have gone unnoticed had he never decided to waddle down that elevator in 2015 and leave his skidmarks all over the Republic.
But he did do that.
He invited the scrutiny that comes with that. And he got it.
In Trump’s hilarious crybaby statement in response to this ruling, he wails that “if they can do this to me, they can do this to YOU!”
So listen, if any of y’all are considering lying and saying your house is 30,000 square feet, and claiming it’s worth $1.5 billion to get the kinds of loan terms really rich people get, and then arguing it’s OK because the Saudis would probably buy your house for whatever you listed it for, maybe don’t do that.
They’re witch-hunting for that kind of thing in New York.
[ruling]
Evan Hurst on Twitter right here.
@evanjosephhurst on Threads!
I have profiles those other places but I think I forgot how to log on.
If you're shopping on Amazon anyway, this portal gives us a small commission.
"Apparently, the point was not received."
Shot a lawyer just to watch him die.
I nominate this phrase for Wonkette memedom next to canned clams and those cakes we like.
First, thank you Wonkette. This is a beautifully written and highly informative. I only hope the snarkfest that will follow reflects the same level of quality.
Second, and someone please correct me, could this not be the death knell for a lot more than trump's scuzzy New York business? Hear me out wonks -
For decades trump's been borrowing money based on the inflated values of the real estate he bought when he actually had some of his inherited wealth left. Most real estate developers borrow to reinvest, trump borrowed to fund his faux billionaire lifestyle.
Ma-ra-lardo loses money, his golf clubs lose money, everything he touches of course loses money. It didn't matter in the past because the loans on real assets - largely in New York - were much bigger than the operating losses. All he had to do was pay off one loan and take out another larger loan based on an even more fictitious valuation. Hey presto he's temporarily rich again.
And now it's all over.